A Sitting in St. James

by Rita Williams-Garcia, Machelle Williams (Read by)

Overview

Winner of the Boston Globe/Horn Book Award!

7 starred reviews! "Monumental." —Booklist (starred review) * "A marathon masterpiece."—Kirkus (starred review) * "Necessary."—SLJ (starred review) * "Shocking and dramatic."—Shelf Awareness (starred review) * "Mesmerizing, confounding and vividly rendered."—Book Page (starred review) * "Williams-Garcia’s storytelling is magnificent; her voice honest and authentic."—Horn Book (starred review)

This astonishing novel from three-time National Book Award finalist Rita Williams-Garcia about the interwoven lives of those bound to a plantation in antebellum America is an epic masterwork—empathetic, brutal, and entirely human—and essential reading for both teens and adults grappling with the long history of American racism.

1860, Louisiana. After serving as mistress of Le Petit Cottage for more than six decades, Madame Sylvie Guilbert has decided, in spite of her family’s objections, to sit for a portrait.

While Madame plots her last hurrah, stories that span generations—from the big house to out in the fields—of routine horrors, secrets buried as deep as the family fortune, and the tangled bonds of descendants and enslaved, come to light to reveal a true portrait of the Guilberts.

Rita Williams-Garcia is one of the preeminent authors of our time. She has been honored with the Children's Literature Lecture Award from the American Library Association.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781665078450
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	05/25/2021
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 6.90(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

Rita Williams-Garcia is the author of the Newbery Honor–winning novel One Crazy Summer, which was also a winner of the Coretta Scott King Award, a National Book Award finalist, and winner of the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction. She is also the author of six distinguished novels for young adults: Jumped, a National Book Award finalist; No Laughter Here; Every Time a Rainbow Dies (a Publishers Weekly Best Children’s Book); Fast Talk on a Slow Track (all ALA Best Books for Young Adults); Blue Tights; and Like Sisters on the Homefront, a Coretta Scott King Honor Book. She is on the faculty at the Vermont College of Fine Arts in the Writing for Children & Young Adults Program.

Machelle Williams has crafted an easy storytelling style from twenty-three years as a corporate trainer and keynote diversity speaker. Since 2016 she has successfully produced over twenty-eight audiobook projects.

Machelle's voice is nuanced, ranging from soft and soothing to dramatic and smoky. She specializes in mysteries and thrillers; her bespoke repertoire also includes cozy mysteries and nonfiction, as well as titles in the religious, urban, and noire genres. When you need a narrator to take your listener to the edge of their seat and their breath away, trust the telling to Machelle.

Editorial Reviews

04/05/2021

The history of a white plantation-owning family dominates this substantial portrait of antebellum slavery by Newbery Honoree Williams-Garcia (One Crazy Summer). Forced to marry a middle-aged planter or risk death at the French Revolution’s start, Madame Sylvie Bernardin de Maret Dacier Guilbert is now the 80-year-old mistress of a failing plantation. Presiding over Le Petit Cottage in Louisiana’s St. James Parish, Madame Sylvie insists upon sitting for a painting—“an obligation to the legacy of the family”—despite its cost. Aiming to keep the estate afloat while catering to his mother’s traditions, her syphilitic son connives to marry off his children. Twined with the Guilbert family’s past are the histories of the enslaved people they exploit in the 1860s, including 16-year-old multilingual Thisbe, personal servant to Madame Sylvie. This provoking history unsparingly centers the brutalization of its Black characters, including manifold instances of beatings, sexual assault, and slurs. If the telling dramatizes harmful philosophies and queer pain, it also offers an unvarnished look at a slowly toppling power structure obsessed with artifice and tradition, hinting through a notably long-view lens that new generations may, slowly and not without suffering, move away from antiquated ideology. Ages 16–up. (May)■

Publishers Weekly

"Equal parts history and tantalizing, chaotic drama, Williams-Garcia's stunning novel delivers a fresh and nuanced approach to the tale of American slavery... Best-selling, award-winning Williams-Garcia's return to YA, particularly with a book as monumental as this, is definite cause for celebration." — Booklist (starred review)

"With a cast of characters whose assorted genealogies feel like an ode to the mixing of peoples and cultures in Louisiana, this story broadens and emboldens interrogations of U.S. chattel slavery... A marathon masterpiece that shares a holistic portrait of U.S. history that must not be dismissed or forgotten." — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"In this sweeping, richly researched, and powerfully delivered tale of privilege and exploitation—often a difficult read—Williams-Garcia’s storytelling is magnificent; her voice honest and authentic." — Horn Book (starred review)

"This is a wonderful character-driven novel as stories of the enslaved and the slaveowners are simultaneously told... This novel is a necessary purchase for conversations about ­slavery’s legacy in the Black Lives Matter era." — School Library Journal (starred review)

"The masterful Rita Williams-Garcia depicts the brutality and inhumanity of slavery in the antebellum South by intertwining the lives of the white Guilbert family and the Black people they enslaved in this shocking and dramatic novel." — Shelf Awareness (starred review)

“A Sitting in St. James is a mesmerizing, confounding and vividly rendered portrait of the thoroughly putrid institution of slavery in antebellum Louisiana.” — BookPage (starred review)

"Offers an unvarnished look at a slowly toppling power structure obsessed with artifice and tradition, hinting through a notably long-view lens that new generations may, slowly and not without suffering, move away from antiquated ideology." — Publishers Weekly

"Williams-Garcia is chessmaster of a deviously intricate game; Madame Sylvie may make the boldest moves, but it’s her hobbled pawn, the near-silent servant Thisbe, who listens, observes, learns, and amasses the knowledge to strike the queen with a coup de grâce." — Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

From the Publisher

"The masterful Rita Williams-Garcia depicts the brutality and inhumanity of slavery in the antebellum South by intertwining the lives of the white Guilbert family and the Black people they enslaved in this shocking and dramatic novel."

Shelf Awareness (starred review)

A Sitting in St. James is a mesmerizing, confounding and vividly rendered portrait of the thoroughly putrid institution of slavery in antebellum Louisiana.

BookPage (starred review)

"Williams-Garcia is chessmaster of a deviously intricate game; Madame Sylvie may make the boldest moves, but it’s her hobbled pawn, the near-silent servant Thisbe, who listens, observes, learns, and amasses the knowledge to strike the queen with a coup de grâce."

Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

"In this sweeping, richly researched, and powerfully delivered tale of privilege and exploitation—often a difficult read—Williams-Garcia’s storytelling is magnificent; her voice honest and authentic."

Horn Book (starred review)

"Equal parts history and tantalizing, chaotic drama, Williams-Garcia's stunning novel delivers a fresh and nuanced approach to the tale of American slavery... Best-selling, award-winning Williams-Garcia's return to YA, particularly with a book as monumental as this, is definite cause for celebration."

Booklist (starred review)

"Williams-Garcia is chessmaster of a deviously intricate game; Madame Sylvie may make the boldest moves, but it’s her hobbled pawn, the near-silent servant Thisbe, who listens, observes, learns, and amasses the knowledge to strike the queen with a coup de grâce."

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

A Sitting in St. James is a mesmerizing, confounding and vividly rendered portrait of the thoroughly putrid institution of slavery in antebellum Louisiana.

BookPage

★ 05/01/2021

Gr 9 Up—In 1860, Madame Sylvie Bernardin de Maret Dacier Guilbert rules Le Petit Cottage in the St. James Parish region of Louisiana with an iron fist. She is disappointed in her son, Lucien, who is experiencing financial woes in operating the plantation. She denies the existence and presence of her mixed-race granddaughter, Rosalie, whom she forbids in her home. She places all her hope in her white grandson, Byron, to continue their royal French bloodline and inherit their family vineyard in France. She suspects Byron is in love with fellow West Point cadet Robinson Pearce so she sets up his engagement to Eugénie Duhon. She abuses her enslaved girl Thisbe into total silence at her beck and call. She assumes etiquette lessons for tomboyish Jane Chatham, a planter's daughter who is uninterested in womanhood and focuses all her energies on her horse, Virginia Wilder, and the amount of meat in her meals. She looks forward to sitting for a portrait. However, her Old-World mindset begins to erode beyond her control. This is a wonderful character-driven novel as stories of the enslaved and the slaveowners are simultaneously told. Williams-Garcia does an excellent job in taking readers through France's colonial and revolutionary histories and their impact on Louisiana's development as a New World outpost. VERDICT This novel is a necessary purchase for conversations about slavery's legacy in the Black Lives Matter era.—Donald Peebles, Brooklyn P.L.

School Library Journal

Machelle Williams skillfully narrates this sprawling story of generational secrets in antebellum Louisiana. La Petite Cottage plantation is home to three generations of Guilberts, as well as the enslaved people who make their lifestyle possible. The family matriarch’s decision to sit for her portrait begins a chain of events that will upend everyone’s fortunes. Williams weaves a hypnotic spell, pulling the listener along to meet the huge cast of characters and hear their tangled stories. Williams’s deliberate pace, which might otherwise frustrate listeners, is kept lively by her shrewdly observed character voices. Chief among them is the exquisitely sharp tongue of imperious Madame Sylvie, mistress of the plantation. Williams makes clear the intricate language switching common to Creole Louisiana among both enslavers and the enslaved. N.M. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award, 2022 Audies Finalist © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine

JUNE 2021 - AudioFile

Machelle Williams skillfully narrates this sprawling story of generational secrets in antebellum Louisiana. La Petite Cottage plantation is home to three generations of Guilberts, as well as the enslaved people who make their lifestyle possible. The family matriarch’s decision to sit for her portrait begins a chain of events that will upend everyone’s fortunes. Williams weaves a hypnotic spell, pulling the listener along to meet the huge cast of characters and hear their tangled stories. Williams’s deliberate pace, which might otherwise frustrate listeners, is kept lively by her shrewdly observed character voices. Chief among them is the exquisitely sharp tongue of imperious Madame Sylvie, mistress of the plantation. Williams makes clear the intricate language switching common to Creole Louisiana among both enslavers and the enslaved. N.M. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award, 2022 Audies Finalist © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine

JUNE 2021 - AudioFile

★ 2021-03-03
An unblinking view into plantation life in the Deep South.

At first glance this epic seems to be focused on the ups and downs of the Guilbert family, slaveholders living in the Louisiana parish of St. James whose legacy is protected by 80-year-old matriarch Madame Sylvie Bernardin de Maret Dacier Guilbert. However, Williams-Garcia doesn’t stop in the salons and sitting rooms; she brings readers into the cabins and cookhouses of enslaved people whose perceived invisibility gives them access to ideas and knowledge that empower them in ways that few fiction writers have examined. Sixteen-year-old Thisbe is the personal servant to Madame Guilbert—treated like a pet and beaten with a hairbrush for the smallest alleged slight. Her narrative to liberation is intricately webbed within the story of the Guilberts. Thisbe’s silence helps her acquire the language to affirm her humanity to those who would deny it. With a cast of characters whose assorted genealogies feel like an ode to the mixing of peoples and cultures in Louisiana, this story broadens and emboldens interrogations of U.S. chattel slavery. Williams-Garcia’s meticulous research processes shout volumes about the importance of taking contemporary inspiration into the archives to unearth sorely needed truths as we continue to navigate questions of equity and justice for the descendants of enslaved people.

A marathon masterpiece that shares a holistic portrait of U.S. history that must not be dismissed or forgotten. (author's note, bibliography) (Historical fiction. 15-adult)

Kirkus Reviews